The Stint at 46. And doughnuts.

Good evening all,

Sorry it's been so long, but hey, I've been busy.  ON TO BUSINESS!

Things are coming together a bit at the inlaws (and the sitch that shall heretofore be called 'the stint at 46').  Today I completed the glosswork in the bedroom (skirting, doors and coving) and got another coat of blackboard paint on the cupboards in the kitchenny bit.  I also got to smash 'Bizarre Kitchen Island Unit' with a sledgehammer.  That felt pretty good.  I also painted the wall my old favorite, Chic Shadow by Dulux.  We got a lot of stuff cleared out of the room too, which helped a buttload.

Mid progress:

The grey on the walls really calms it all down a notch.

 And here we have the best shot I took of the missing kitchen Island.

I had to all the painting with a brush and not a roller because it's actually tongue and groove panelling, so that was fun.  On the plus side however, because we did a whole bunch of work there today, this is what we had for dinner:

That's right, you crazy kids.  Homemade sugar doughnuts, fresh out of the pan, smothered in sugar and cinnamon.  They were truly epic.  

So, to recap:

Cons:  Essentially homeless.  Pros:  Doughnuts for dinner.

Oh, we also had a charity bake sale at work, you know the drill.

Check it, yo.

Slow progress and baking

Good afternoon all,

Life has been so busy lately.  Things have been busy at work and then I come home and things are busy here too.  One day last week I pulled 11.5 hours at work and them came home to clean my carpets.

Frankly, I live the life of an international movie star.

So, we've made a tiny bit of progress at the in-laws.  We managed some time there yesterday to:

- Remove an inexplicable plank glued, screwed and no-nails'ed to the ceiling
-Replace above with a made-from-scratch ceiling rose
-Painted all walls in the bedroom
-Painted the bedroom door (including the edge...more on that to come!)
-Re hung the wonky 'kitchen' cabinet
-Got a coat of chalkboard paint on said cabinets

All in all, about an 8 hour day there.  On the plus side, we sent the estate agent pictures of the house and asked if they wanted us to paint it back white.  They asked us to leave it as it is, and also put the rent up £20 a month for the next tenants.   We were due to have 3 viewings last Friday, but the first lot took it in a heartbeat, so no more strangers traipsing through the house.  It is already starting to feel like someone elses house, though.  Anyway, you're just here for the pictures.

Depressingly, the colour on the walls IS a different colour to that on the cupboard doors, but in this pic it looks pretty much the same.

Still, this wall was dark grey and now it's dove, and you can just about see the pink on the edge of the door there.  Little touches like this make me happy.

Pink door edge up close.  (FYI the colour is pin-up pink from Crown Vintage, and the walls are our old staple, Chic Shadow Once, by Dulux)

There was so much work involved in getting this ceiling rose up.  The bizarre plank that preceded it pulled up pulled down a bunch of the wallpaper (yes, wallpaper) when we pulled it down, and the no nails had seeped out and turned everything brown.  We managed to a. find some scraps of wallpaper, b. Pattern match them and c. paste them up with wallpaper paste.  I then painted the new paper and a bit of the old white, which highlighted the fact that the ceiling wasn't white after all.  Meanwhile, the Mr set about finding a suitable sized piece of wood and cutting it into a circle and routing a nice pattern into the edges.  Once the ceiling is fully dry we'll screw it up tightly and fill and cover the screwholes.  All the electrical gubbins is on the underside, so there should be no need to take it down again.

And here's the newly-straightened cabinetry (and cameo from the Mr) drying after it's first coat of magnetic chalkboard paint.  Long way to go in there yet... As you can see, the tiles go to the bottom of the cabinets.  This included the one that was lower than the others, so theres a few missing tiles where the cabinet used to be.  Luckily my in-laws never throw ANYTHING away (like wallpaper used to cover a ceiling 15 years ago...) so there are more tiles around.  After chipping off the existing half tiles, the wall is now ready for some new tiles.

And Baking!

I went to a lovely BBQ today and got burned to a crisp despite wearing high factor sunscreen.  I baked a lemon drizzle cake, but didn't have a chance to take any pictures before we left, so I'm afraid the pictures were taken in the car.

Tune in next time for more exciting developments!

Dining Room!

Good Afternoon!

After another weekend with the paintbrushes it seems that the dining room is finally in a sharable state.  I'm still not sure about the yellow, but the Mr loves it.  The grey does soften it a bit (yes, it's the same grey as the lounge and the bedroom).  Anyway, enough of the talking, let's get on to the pictures...

We have the light fixture hanging over the dining room table.  As we live in a rental place, we couldn't be moving the light fixtures, so we rewired the ceiling rose with a nice long bit of flex, and added a hook to the ceiling above the table.  Voila!

All in all, the room feels a little more livable now, but ut's an awkward shape and still doesn't feel quite 'right'.  Watch this space, I suppose!

Redecorating the living room

Good evening all,

We decided to redecorate the living room, get rid of the one dark grey wall and go for a softer grey all over.  After spending days agonising over the exact shade, hue and intensity of grey (seriously, who knew there so may greys!) we came to a decision and headed off to Homebase to get it mixed.  Obviously we came home with something else.

The colour we chose was called 'night jewels 5' by Dulux, but we picked up a tub of Once in Chic Shadow instead.  What can I say, I'm impatient.  Here's the obligatory 'before' shot...

Most of the walls are white, but the one behind the TV was a dark grey shade called 'Smoulder' by Crown Paints.  It's been that colour for a couple of years now and needed freshening up, so we decided to change it up completely and brighten the room up a bit.  Last night everything went back to 'moving-day white'...

In an homage to Red Dwarf, we changed it from Dowdy old 'Ocean Grey' to crisp new 'Military Grey'...

And here's the completed paintwork!  We're still putting the room back together, so I'll stick up some pictures of the room tomorrow, but for now hopefully this gives an idea of the changes...We've moved some of the prints around too, and the whole room just looks so much less cluttered.

More pictures tomorrow!